Showing results by publisher "Caravan" in History

Jailed as a scapegoat for Stalin's famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collected hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity. Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov's story with his own expeditions to Earth's richest agricultural landscapes and the cultures that tend them.

In this rapid-paced book, a former CIA chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence breaks open the mysterious case of KGB officer Yuri Nosenko's 1964 defection to the United States. Still a highly controversial chapter in the history of Cold War espionage, the Nosenko affair has inspired debate for more than 40 years. Was Nosenko a bona fide defector with the real information about Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in Soviet Russia, or was he a KGB loyalist, engaged in a complex game of deception?

This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11. Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since Nixon have augmented the tangled bases for the 2001 terrorist attack.

Humans have long turned to gardens—both real and imaginary—for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. Those gardens may be as far away from everyday reality as Gilgamesh’s garden of the gods or as near as our own backyard, but in their very conception and the marks they bear of human care and cultivation, gardens stand as restorative, nourishing, necessary havens.

Since humans migrated from Africa and dispersed throughout the world, they have found countless ways and reasons to reconnect with one another. In this entertaining book, Nayan Chanda follows the exploits of traders, preachers, adventurers, and warriors throughout history as they have shaped and reshaped the world. For Chanda, globalization is a process of ever-growing interconnectedness and interdependence that began thousands of years ago and continues to this day with increasing speed and ease.

What do Americans think of when they think of the hamburger? A robust, succulent spheroid of fresh ground beef, the birthright of red-blooded citizens? Or a Styrofoam-shrouded Big Mac, mass-produced to industrial specifications and served by wage slaves to an obese, brainwashed population? Is it cooking or commodity? An icon of freedom or the quintessence of conformity?

The War Comes Home is structured around the different experiences of US veterans of the Iraq war. Sections of the book are dedicated to the difficulties of reintegrating to civilian life after coming home, living with disability, unemployment, dealing with the military bureaucracy, suicide, and homelessness - as well as more upbeat sections about families, communities and fellow veterans pulling together to help each other.

Billy Sothern's Down in New Orleans illustrates, in very human and heartbreaking ways, how the horrors that emerged during and following Hurricane Katrina existed long before the storm. These beautifully composed stories not only reveal the dignity—and amazing grit and grace—of the hurricane's survivors; they also illuminate larger truths about the urgent issues of our day.

At the beginning of the 21st century, China is poised to become a major global power. And though much has been written of China's rise, a crucial aspect of this transformation has gone largely unnoticed: the way that China is using soft power to appeal to its neighbors and to distant countries alike.

This riveting biography of a Massachusetts slave boy who fought in the Revolutionary War illuminates race relations in the Northern colonies, early battles of the revolution, and the experiences of Black soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

"John DiIulio's Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future is a splendid book. It is a much needed book. It is a book that will raise eyebrows and raise hackles - at both edges of the political spectrum. It will also raise the consciousness of listeners who are willing to consider dispassionately the careful, thoughtful, and quite penetrating argument Professor DiIulio makes...."

With insight and compassion, Pamela Stone shows convincingly that, far from representing a return to tradition, the decision of some women to relinquish high-powered careers is a reluctant and conflict-ridden response to the growing mismatch between privatized families and time-demanding jobs.

During the First World War the U.S. Department of Justice, using the newly passed Espionage Act and its later Sedition Act amendment, prosecuted and won the convictions of many who opposed America’s entry into the conflict. Historian William H. Thomas Jr. shows that the Justice Department did not stop at this official charge but went much further, paying cautionary visits to suspected dissenters, pressuring them to express support of the war effort, or intimidating them into silence.

In this brilliant portrait of the oceans' unlikely hero, H. Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America's national-and natural-history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and industry.

This charming book recounts the remarkable journey of the bagel from the tables of 17th-century Poland to the freezers of middle America today. The story is one of surprising connections between an unassuming ring-shaped roll and centuries of Polish, Jewish, and American history.

Since the early days of the American republic, political thinkers have maintained that a grossly unequal division of property, wealth, and power would lead to the erosion of democratic life. Yet over the past thirty-five years, neoconservatives and neoliberals alike have redrawn the tenets of American liberalism. Nowhere is this more evident than in our current mainstream political discourse, in which the politics of economic inequality are rarely discussed.

The gripping story of the life and education of one of America's most innovative and idealistic lawyers.

The true story of a resilient circle of shrimp boat captains who faced and withstood the wreckage of Katrina but now find their courage tested by a greater threat: the disappearance of their livelihood and their centuries-old bayou culture.

Although middle-income families don't earn much more than they did several decades ago, they are buying bigger cars, houses, and appliances. To pay for them, they spend more than they earn and carry record levels of debt. In a book that explores the very meaning of happiness and prosperity in America today, Robert Frank explains how increased concentrations of income and wealth at the top of the economic pyramid have set off "expenditure cascades" that raise the cost of achieving many basic goals for the middle class.

On Earth Day 1970 20 million Americans displayed their commitment to a clean environment. It was called the largest demonstration in human history, and it permanently changed the nation's political agenda. By Earth Day 2000 participation had exploded to 500 million people in 167 countries. The seemingly simple idea—a day set aside to focus on protecting our natural environment—was the brainchild of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.